Sunday, January 25, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Gaming Chronicles - Sonic '06: It's NO USE! (And Now We're Playing Silver)
Alright, shocking truth coming your way. Big upset, so you'd better sit down. Sitting down? Good.
I enjoyed playing as Silver. Granted, the camera was still a pain, and the overall gameplay was still bad, but finally being able to throw things at enemies and It's No Use (TM) my enemies was great. In Silver's first few levels, I was having a good time. Even the fight with Sonic was easy, and I beat it in less than a minute.
That said, much was bad. Certain levels took over 15:00 to complete. One particular level, Silver's run through the Dusty Desert, has a terribly convoluted puzzle involving a numbered sphere and a over long obstacle course. In a proud moment (at least, for me) I finally did a useful clip in-game. Previously, I clipped through a door just for kicks. This time, I used Silver's powers and a random box to clip him through a door to skip the obnoxious puzzle. It was a glorious moment.
After that, I finally started getting annoyed at the game again. Hits from enemies stops characters completely, Amy Rose played horribly, and Blaze didn't play much better, despite better attacks and mobility.
The last straw was Silver's final boss fight with Iblis. I went through four Game Overs before breaking down and looking for a video online. The game never indicates that a particular attack can be used back on him. Besides that point, the boss fight was easy, if a little boring. And annoying.
And then I started into the Last Episode... More on that later.
I enjoyed playing as Silver. Granted, the camera was still a pain, and the overall gameplay was still bad, but finally being able to throw things at enemies and It's No Use (TM) my enemies was great. In Silver's first few levels, I was having a good time. Even the fight with Sonic was easy, and I beat it in less than a minute.
That said, much was bad. Certain levels took over 15:00 to complete. One particular level, Silver's run through the Dusty Desert, has a terribly convoluted puzzle involving a numbered sphere and a over long obstacle course. In a proud moment (at least, for me) I finally did a useful clip in-game. Previously, I clipped through a door just for kicks. This time, I used Silver's powers and a random box to clip him through a door to skip the obnoxious puzzle. It was a glorious moment.
After that, I finally started getting annoyed at the game again. Hits from enemies stops characters completely, Amy Rose played horribly, and Blaze didn't play much better, despite better attacks and mobility.
The last straw was Silver's final boss fight with Iblis. I went through four Game Overs before breaking down and looking for a video online. The game never indicates that a particular attack can be used back on him. Besides that point, the boss fight was easy, if a little boring. And annoying.
And then I started into the Last Episode... More on that later.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Gaming Chronicles - Sonic '06: Shadow! The Grittier Sonic
Alright! Now it's time to tackle the Shadow campaign. I know I could go ahead and play Silver, but I'll save that fun for later. Anyway, I actually like Shadow more than Sonic or Silver. Yeah, yeah, the games overload his angst a bit. Still, he's a bit deeper of a character than Sonic. (At least, in my opinion.)
One nice thing about Shadow is that there are no mach speed sections. Instead, Shadow's story has a lot of vehicular sections. Oddly enough, I enjoyed some of them. The glider was a bit fun! However, the land buggy thing was way too sensitive, and I found myself jumping out of it early to escape the annoyance. I can't say much about the water vehicle. It was OK.
Unlike Sonic, Shadow has a kick technique that he does after a homing attack. Most of the times, I avoided using the attack as getting out of it was annoying and slowed my pace down. Similar to Sonic, aiming a homing attack incorrectly would send my flying, often off random ledges into the abyss. And there was another Silver fight. (I dread Silver's story because of that; he fights Sonic and Shadow... Ugggghghghg.)
Playing as Rouge was just annoying. She has to stop whenever she attacks. Walking, flying, whatever. At least Tails could fly and throw at the same time. Anyhow, that didn't compare to the E-123 Omega sections. (I won't go into how they totally changed his voice, that's a different issue entirely.) His attacks were weird, and I couldn't just attack enemies. I had to be above them. Supposedly he had a target-lock system (a la E-102 in Sonic Adventure) but I never got the hang of it.
As I feared, the Silver fight was horrible. Out of the five Game Overs I got in that play session, three of them were from Silver. I eventually figured out a trick to beating him (using the passing cargo containers by kicking on top of them. It wasn't perfect, but it helped.) Shadow's final boss fight, with Mephiles, was also annoying. I wasted 11 minutes in one failed attempt because the dodgy homing-attack aiming didn't let me climb the fake Mephiles to get the final hit on the real one.
Starting out, I was ambivalent. However, by the time I got to 80% and higher, I just wanted to be done with Shadow. I just couldn't *wait* to get to Silver's story. Just one full campaign left, and I'll be finally done. I hope.
One nice thing about Shadow is that there are no mach speed sections. Instead, Shadow's story has a lot of vehicular sections. Oddly enough, I enjoyed some of them. The glider was a bit fun! However, the land buggy thing was way too sensitive, and I found myself jumping out of it early to escape the annoyance. I can't say much about the water vehicle. It was OK.
Unlike Sonic, Shadow has a kick technique that he does after a homing attack. Most of the times, I avoided using the attack as getting out of it was annoying and slowed my pace down. Similar to Sonic, aiming a homing attack incorrectly would send my flying, often off random ledges into the abyss. And there was another Silver fight. (I dread Silver's story because of that; he fights Sonic and Shadow... Ugggghghghg.)
Playing as Rouge was just annoying. She has to stop whenever she attacks. Walking, flying, whatever. At least Tails could fly and throw at the same time. Anyhow, that didn't compare to the E-123 Omega sections. (I won't go into how they totally changed his voice, that's a different issue entirely.) His attacks were weird, and I couldn't just attack enemies. I had to be above them. Supposedly he had a target-lock system (a la E-102 in Sonic Adventure) but I never got the hang of it.
As I feared, the Silver fight was horrible. Out of the five Game Overs I got in that play session, three of them were from Silver. I eventually figured out a trick to beating him (using the passing cargo containers by kicking on top of them. It wasn't perfect, but it helped.) Shadow's final boss fight, with Mephiles, was also annoying. I wasted 11 minutes in one failed attempt because the dodgy homing-attack aiming didn't let me climb the fake Mephiles to get the final hit on the real one.
Starting out, I was ambivalent. However, by the time I got to 80% and higher, I just wanted to be done with Shadow. I just couldn't *wait* to get to Silver's story. Just one full campaign left, and I'll be finally done. I hope.
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